FA CUP

GSPBASSES

A disgrace

  I'm not really a football fan, I don't support any club. I watch Match of the Day, and the occasional live match on sky. As I'm housebound at the moment, I've been watching most of the FA Cup games over the weekend. And I think it's totally disgraceful that some premiership clubs do not seem to take this competition seriously any more. With several premiership clubs putting out basically a second 11 team. Now I know that any footballer who plays in the premiership should be very good, but having watched several games yesterday and today, and a pathetic performance of clubs like Chelsea makes me sick. Chelsea were not the only club to do this, Arsenal got thrashed today as well.

Some of the comments from the pundits was interesting, basically saying the club putting out these poor teams are more interested in winning the premiership or staying in the premiership. What a load of bullocks but unfortunately most likely true. If that's all they're interested in, they shouldn't be allowed to play in the FA Cup, or if they do put out a weakened team and it's a deliberate attempt to preserve their status in the premiership, then maybe the FA should deduct points from them.

If I remember rightly not that many years ago any club who put out a substandard time would be fined by the FA. Maybe they should look at this again. It wasn't only in the FA Cup this weekend, where premiership clubs put out weakened teams. It also happened over the Christmas period. 

ronnyb

Leeds did the same thing today, losing to second division Newport. 

joeyowen

Apparently the prize money for getting through this round was £7500

That is (almost) literally nothing to premier league clubs compared to league places, CL/EL progression.

However, I agree with you it is a shame and the cup has lost it's magic completely.  But in football, money talks

Bridgehouse

It's just my personal view, but the monetisation of football and the premier league ruined the enjoyment for me many years ago. I know a lot of you on here love your football, but for me it just doesn't have the same appeal as it did when I were a lad. 

Legionreturns

The pressure managers are under now means they rotate squads to protect their best assets for the games that they'll be judged on. 

I have no problem with palace playing a weakened teamed tomorrow night, as premiership survival is more important than getting to the 4th round of the cup. It's playing percentages.

Flink_Poyd

I'm only a passing fan these days. The Premier League takes priority, cup games are icing on the cake and a day out for the fans. As for the teams they put out that's why they  have big squads, I think West Ham have played 3 games in a week. It's a good way of giving younger players experience as well but it's obviously a gamble they take. 
 I don't think they take it lightly at all and I don't get annoyed by it as they have so many players now they may as well use them at some point. 

roundthebend

I don't think the players are necessarily much worse than the first choice ones, it's just that they're not a cohesive team with "match fitness". It is disappointing, but in the flip side gives these smaller teams a chance to make the headlines. My team, Peterborough United, win at Aston Villa and got good reviews from it. Funny old game.

Lestratcaster

Arsenal fan here, watched the game earlier and was appalled by what Walcott, Welbeck and Iwobi had to offer, all first team squad players. Leaky defence was shaky and just never got going. I think a few more first team regulars should have played with Ozil, Lacazette and Sanchez on the bench. Wilshere should have got a game too.

thecolourbox

And who can actually say that a team is definitely weakened not just rearranged, which would make deducting points quite difficult. 

I don't really care how my team gets on in the cup and would rather see us do well in the league as it's a more interesting challenge

TTony

Bridgehouse said:

It's just my personal view, but the monetisation of football and the premier league ruined the enjoyment for me many years ago. I know a lot of you on here love your football, but for me it just doesn't have the same appeal as it did when I were a lad. 

Sums it up for me.

It's just about the money now.

Budgie

Derby put out a weakened team too. We were only playing Man Utd. Pah!

EricTheWeary

Wolves were fined £25k  in 2010 for  putting out a ‘weakened’ team on a match they were expecting to lose anyway. Football teams have squads and the manager was trying to make a tactical move. I think that’s fair enough, if you are going to manage a team you should be able to do your job.
On the other hand, yes, a lot of the glitz has been taken off the FA Cup - the final was the biggest day of the football calendar when I was younger. I was living in Coventry in 1987 when they won, the town emptied for the afternoon to watch the telly and then went crazy for 48 hours.

Bridgehouse

TTony said:

Bridgehouse said:

It's just my personal view, but the monetisation of football and the premier league ruined the enjoyment for me many years ago. I know a lot of you on here love your football, but for me it just doesn't have the same appeal as it did when I were a lad. 

Sums it up for me.

It's just about the money now.

It's the knock on effect of that which is most saddening.

Like any business you have to understand your market. I'm not sure the clubs, the FA and the PL really have a focus on ensuring the fans feel they are getting what they really want - high quality and entertaining football. 

Sure, there's entertainment - but it's more like a soap opera sometimes, and business decisions are made with shareholders in mind, not customers - where have we heard that before?

axisus

It is what it is now. I still follow Man U and also my home town of Luton, but football was ruined by money a great many years ago. I put most of the blame on idiot clubs throwing obscene amounts of money at parasitic agents. I forget the amount, but Neymar's agent (his dad) basically got paid around £80 million to get his own son and one other person to sign a bit of paper. I would LOVE football to implode, crash and burn the whole world over.

MtB

You can hardly blame the big teams when you see the Premiership and Champions League prizes in comparison to the FA cup prize money:

Winner of the FA Cup this year gets £1,800,000

Winner of the Premiership (last year) got £38,832,180

And the Champions League:

The winners of the league stages a team can win £11.4m + £1.35m per win
In the next round the winners will get an additional £5.4m
In the 1/4 finals the winners will get an additional £5.8m
In the semis the winners will get an additional £6.7m
The Runners up wil get an additional £9.9m
The winners will pocket £13.9m  (so in total the winners will have a total of £43.2m prize money)

Plus there is £456m on TV revenus to be shared amongst the teams in the competition  

thecolourbox

EricTheWeary said:

Wolves were fined £25k  in 2010 for  putting out a ‘weakened’ team on a match they were expecting to lose anyway. Football teams have squads and the manager was trying to make a tactical move. I think that’s fair enough, if you are going to manage a team you should be able to do your job.
On the other hand, yes, a lot of the glitz has been taken off the FA Cup - the final was the biggest day of the football calendar when I was younger. I was living in Coventry in 1987 when they won, the town emptied for the afternoon to watch the telly and then went crazy for 48 hours.

What was particularly shocking about that instance is that anybody noticed that Wolves were any worse than normal, they must have been truly abysmal

menamestom

MtB said:

You can hardly blame the big teams when you see the Premiership and Champions League prizes in comparison to the FA cup prize money:

Winner of the FA Cup this year gets £1,800,000

 

It's not just the prize money that's important, it's also the fact the FA Cup is broadcast to 100 countries showing to nearly 100 million people.  Just checked a few lineups from the games and Man City, Man united and Liverpool all had decent teams out.  That's 3 out of the top 4, becuase they know it's value lies in extending markets.

Tottenham also had Kane up front, probably one of the most valuable players in world football, playing against a team near the bottom of league 1.  I'm not sure the problem is quite so bad as assumed here.

Also great that our £75 million striker Lukaku finaly scored against top 6 opposition!

scrumhalf

menamestom said:

Tottenham also had Kane up front, probably one of the most valuable players in world football, playing against a team near the bottom of league 1.  I'm not sure the problem is quite so bad as assumed here.

Sadly, our alternative to Kane is Llorente, who is proving to be another of our big-money failures.

mudslide73

It's a good distraction if you're having a bad run (We haven't won in the league since August) and is the only realistic chance anyone outside the top six has of winning anything. Just hope we don't draw the Wolves in the next round. 

menamestom

scrumhalf said:

menamestom said:

Tottenham also had Kane up front, probably one of the most valuable players in world football, playing against a team near the bottom of league 1.  I'm not sure the problem is quite so bad as assumed here.

Sadly, our alternative to Kane is Llorente, who is proving to be another of our big-money failures.

Big money? I thought he cost £12 million?

Same as Dwight Yorke in 1998

Rocker

The reality is that staying in the Premier League is worth around £90 million to a club. Survival is everything. The FA Cup is a distraction for Premier League sides. Those who have smaller squads anyway.